By 1974, artist Henry Moore was popular enough to warrant a wax figure in Madam Tussauds, not a bad accolade for a modern artist whose best work was innovative and experimental. Tussauds resisted the opportunity to do something abstract with his figure, and a fashioned a fairly good likeness of the 76 year old Yorkshireman, although it did have the somewhat rough-hewn, pock-marked look that wax figures often had at the time. When finished, his nattily dressed likeness stood alongside Picasso.
Wax figures are a great interest of mine, particularly because they tell you a lot about the interests and priorities of the society which produces them. They are always ephemeral: they come and then go, usually for good. As such, I don't know whether Moore's figure was still on display when the real man died in 1986, but I suspect not, David Hockney had almost certainly crept in by then.
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